Damn Am San Diego 2026: At 17, He Beat 70 Skaters — Why 2 of the 3 on the Podium Are Japanese

On August 28, 29 and 30, 2026, the Damn Am kicked off its season at LVLUP USA in Vista, San Diego County. Final word: Momohei Yabushita takes the win. Behind him, American Nels Rosen, then Japan’s Ichiro Tsuzuki. Two of the three steps speak Japanese, and the dude on top is 17.

The podium: Yabushita over Rosen and Tsuzuki

Momohei Yabushita leaves California with first place. The Osaka kid, goofy, backed by Jarow, New Balance Japan, Bones Bearings and Spitfire, had already spent all of Saturday out front: 1st in qualifiers out of 70 skaters entered. He finished the weekend the same way he started it.

• 1. Momohei YabushitaWinner

  Osaka, Japan · 17 years old · 1st in qualifiers out of 70 · 3rd at Tampa Am 2024

• 2. Nels RosenOnly American

  Seattle, WA · Powell Peralta, Etnies, Independent · 2nd in qualifiers, 2nd in the final

• 3. Ichiro TsuzukiTop of the semis

  Saitama, Japan · ASICS, Independent, Bones · 1st in the semifinals ahead of 22 others

• Maurice JordanBest Trick

  Los Angeles, CA · Diamond, Thunder, Spitfire · took the Red Bull Best Trick on Saturday night

One detail worth stating, because you’re going to go looking for it: Skatepark of Tampa doesn’t publish numerical scores for the Damn Am. Not for qualifiers, not for the final. It publishes rankings. So nobody can hand you “the winning run’s score” — and if you read it somewhere, it’s made up.

Three one-minute runs, only one counts

Sunday at 3 p.m., twelve of them are on the park. Each gets three one-minute runs and only the best one counts. No average, no best trick tacked onto the total: one clean minute, or nothing. It’s a format that forgives two slams and zero hesitation — you can eat it twice and still win, as long as the third line lands.

Yabushita’s full run is in the official Skatepark of Tampa video below, filmed by Frank Branca. Watch how he links it all together without ever putting a foot down between obstacles: that’s exactly what this format rewards.

The two who skipped the semis took the top two spots

This is the detail nobody flags, and it explains half the result. The Damn Am has a house rule: the top two in qualifiers earn a “straight shot”, a direct pass to the final. They don’t skate Sunday’s midday semis.

Yabushita and Rosen finished 1st and 2nd in qualifiers. So they watched the other 23 leave it all out there in the semis while they saved their legs. Three hours later, in the final, they finished... 1st and 2nd. Same order. Ichiro Tsuzuki won the semis and then took 3rd: best of the “tired” ones.

None of that takes anything away: you have to go 1st out of 70 on Saturday to earn that perk in the first place. But if you’re wondering why the same names camp at the top of the sheet from one end of the weekend to the other, that’s where it happens. On this circuit, Saturday is worth just as much as Sunday — something we already saw play out at the Red Bull LEDGEnds in Houston.

Red Bull Best Trick: Maurice Jordan cashes in Saturday night

Saturday at 5 p.m., once qualifiers are wrapped, the park flips into Red Bull Best Trick. Open format, one thing matters: the heaviest trick of the night. Maurice Jordan, out of Los Angeles, takes it ahead of Brazil’s Lucas Aquino and Steve Gamboa, from Rialto.

Jordan finished 12th in the final the next day — last of the twelve. That pretty much sums up what best trick really is: a demolition session where nobody’s thinking about the overall standings. The official qualifiers and best trick video is below.

The full finals results — with two Quebecers in there

No French skaters entered this year, but two francophones made the final: Zavier Matthews and Guillaume Brunelle, both from Quebec, 10th and 11th. Brunelle rides for Real, New Balance and Palmiste Skateshop. Out of twelve finalists, the French-speaking world puts two in — that’s two more than all of Europe.

Why two of the three on the podium are Japanese

Here’s the answer, and it’s nothing like a lucky weekend. Japan isn’t sending skaters to California to take a shot: it has taken over the American am circuit over the last two years.

The proof is in the Tampa Am 2025 results, the most prestigious am contest on the planet, at SPoT in Florida. The top 4: a Brazilian, a Swiss, a Canadian, a Peruvian. Zero Americans. And right behind, three Japanese in the top eleven — Taiga Nagai 5th, Rio Yashima 10th, Luca Hirata 11th. Nagai and Hirata are from Osaka. Same as Yabushita.

The spark has a name and a date. Yuto Horigome became Olympic street champion in Tokyo in 2021, then did it again in Paris in 2024 — back-to-back titles, never done before in the discipline. That same two weeks, Momiji Nishiya took gold at 13, then Coco Yoshizawa at 14 in 2024. A Japanese kid born in 2009 grew up in a country where winning in street became the norm, not the exception.

Behind the image, there’s the infrastructure: street parks built for exactly this, a federation that funds the travel, Japanese brands (Jarow for Yabushita, Willys Workshop for Tsuzuki) footing the plane ticket for a 17-year-old am headed to a contest in Vista. None of that existed in 2015. We already saw it on the women’s side a few weeks back: three Japanese women on the SLS Tempe podium. And if you want to see what a spot where these kids hang looks like, go read our visit to Miyashita Park in Tokyo.

So no, this isn’t chance. It’s a pipeline, built over ten years, that’s now hitting the am level of the US circuit and winning there. Yabushita is no surprise: he was already 3rd at Tampa Am 2024, at an age when most of the Vista finalists were still grinding through qualifiers.

What this weekend opens up: October, Tampa, turning pro

A Damn Am isn’t an endpoint, it’s a ticket. The top 20 skaters of the weekend lock a spot in Saturday’s qualifiers at Tampa Am, in October. And Tampa Am is the waiting room: that’s where it gets decided who turns pro this year.

Yabushita will show up there with a different status than in 2024: no longer the kid who surprises, now the guy everyone’s watching. Same for Nels Rosen — 2nd in qualifiers, 2nd in the final, the kind of consistency that counts for more than one isolated banger. And Carlos Garcia, 6th here after a 2nd place at Damn Am Louisville - 2025, keeps stacking finals without landing on the top step yet.

Next up: Tampa, in October. If the Japanese pipeline does at Tampa Am what it just did in Vista, the question won’t be “why two Japanese on the podium” anymore, it’ll be “who’s going to stop them.”

The straight shot to the final: earned, or does it skew the contest? Drop it in the comments ↓

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